The Coming Out
by lisbeth-dragon
Summary: I've been seeing a lot of lesbian nicole watterson fanart on tumblr so i decided to write a story about it this is half a nicole/yuki story and half vent fic about dealing with comphet i'm trying to have it go in the same flow of the show in terms of dialogue at least. I know it's been forever since i posted a story here but leave reviews if you can
1. Chapter 1

Breakfast Time with a Side of Kitchen Fires

The alarm buzzed and with it came the sound of screaming. Nicole Watterson was so used to waking up this way that she could picture the situation in her head without even having to go look. Right now her husband had probably set half the kitchen on fire in an attempt to cook breakfast. Fighting off sleep, she sprung out of bed and rushed down to the kitchen. Her suspicions were confirmed as she saw the kids cornered to one side of the dining room while Richard was attempting to bang the fire extinguisher against the flames.

"Richard you know that's not how we use the fire extinguisher!" Nicole yelled as she yanked it from him.

"It says to use a fire extinguisher to fight the flames & that's what I'm trying to do!" He yelled as he ducked out of her way. "You gotta show the fire who's boss with hand-to-hand combat!" Nicole used the extinguisher to spray down the stove and stared at the mess of foam and burnt pancakes.

"Richard, you'd think for how much you eat you would know how to use the stove," Nicole said while scraping the burnt pancakes into the trash.

"Well that's why we have you around," Richard said cheerfully. "You're the best one to do the cooking, take care of bills, make sure I don't get my head stuck in the toilet."

"Richard there's only so many times I can help you get your head unstuck from the toilet before it gets old." Nicole said as she fixed fresh pancakes for the kids.

As everyone ate breakfast and discussed their plans for the day, Nicole was lost in thought. _'I can't believe he's still like this,'_ Nicole thought as everyone was eating. _'We've been married for what, 20 years now, and he's still just as irresponsible as when we first met? Is this what's it's going to be like? Being stuck cleaning someone else's mess?'_ Nicole thought back to the previous years, before the kids were born, before they were really even dating, Richard had always been this bumbling oaf of a rabbit. There was that one time in grade school when Richard got his tongue stuck to the flag pole because the older kids told him that it tasted like licorice. There was one date where the two of them went up to Make-Out Cliff and Richard didn't know how the brake pedal worked and they were hurtling in reverse and crashed against another tree. Every situation with him just ended in pure chaos, one way or the next. Nicole looked across to the table to notice that he was doing his classic "see food" trick with Anais.

"See? Food!" Richard giggled as bits of pancake dropped from his mouth.

"Ewww, Dad don't be gross!" Anais said as she quickly moved her food out of the way of the pancake drippings.

' _And that's another thing,'_ Nicole realized. _'It really feels like I'm taking care of four kids instead of three.'_

As the kids left for the school bus, Nicole gathered her stuff for work.

"Richard can you clean up the table?" Nicole asked. As she heard a clattering behind her, she turned to notice that Richard had gathered the plates in the tablecloth and dumped it into the trash can.

"Richard that's not what I-" Nicole started to say before realizing there was no point. "Never mind." She quickly hugged him and looked at his face. She looked into those big baby eyes that still had a child-like twinkle despite both of them creeping onto 40. _'There has to be something,'_ she thought.

"I love you sweetie." Nicole said.

"And I love you…." Richard blanked on her name.

"Nicole."

"That's right, Natasha!" Richard said confidently.

"Close enough," Nicole sighed. "Just try not to burn the house down."

"Oh honey," Richard kissed her cheek. "There's no promises."


	2. Chapter 2

People ran past Nicole, their colorful outfits almost creating streaks against the gray office paint. While the interior of the rainbow factory looked drab and gray, it was the employees that helped to bring it to life. Nicole pushed past her coworkers to get to her desk. She worked in the lower department of the factory, where she answered phones and inputted data. It was tedious work but it paid just enough to keep bread on the table.

' _The table that someone always breaks,'_ Nicole chuckled. As stressful as her job was, it was one of the few times that she was able to throw all her focus into her work and focus on getting the job done. Nicole was a born overachiever, which resulted in her being a workaholic, but if it earned her a few extra cents on her paycheck and a few more minutes of semi-peace, she would take it.

Today, however her mind was filled with Richard. As much as she tried to ignore it, thoughts of him filled her head and she felt like she was walking through fog. When she and Richard got married, she went from being a carefree girlfriend to basically being his second mother. His real mother had coddled and sheltered him so he wouldn't need to worry about the real world. And considering the world would literally end if Richard tried to get a job, that was just an extra layer of stress on her shoulders. Nicole had been married for 20 years but it felt like she was thrust into an early motherhood before even getting pregnant.

What made it worse was that Nicole was truly alone. She was raised to view her fellow classmates as academic competitors rather than potential friends, so there was never any carefree sleepovers or mall goings. This just made dating even harder because unless the boy was on his way to becoming doctor/lawyer hybrid, there was no point to even look at him. Even when she became an adult, no one really wanted to be friends with the woman whose kids were constantly causing destruction every other week. There was still a huge GoPayMe campaign to get their family out of town on ElmorePlus. Nicole felt outside of herself, trying to be the perfect student, daughter, wife, etc, but still had a pit of loneliness in her stomach.

A quiet voice snapped her out of her thoughts. "I see you're deep in thought like always." Nicole turned to see Yuki Yoshida standing near her desk. After their blowout fight, the two women were making an effort to rekindle their friendship. It was awkward considering that Yuki was also Nicole's boss's wife, but they were slowly but surely on their way to something good.

"What are you gonna do, report me for not being productive enough?" Nicole said.

"I definitely could since absent mindedness is frowned upon in the Rainbow Factory LLC, Incorporated," Yuki had rattled off in her usual boss's wife spiel. "But," she paused. "I figured that's the last thing you want to hear."

"I've just been thinking a lot," Nicole confessed. "About Richard, marriage, and everything. It's just been a rough morning like always."

"Hmm," Yuki twirled her white curls between her fingers. "I know that I must maintain an air of professionalism in the workplace but that doesn't mean I can't help a friend." Yuki reached into her purse and pulled out a small business card for a bar close by. She scribbled her number on it and handed it to Nicole.

"This bar has good drinks for cheap and I think it will help you get your mind off things."

"Oh, I don't really drink," Nicole said, flashing back to the few times when she drank leading to too many drunken fights to count.

"Then we can get some food," Yuki replied. "Either way it's my treat, you know, it's what friends do."

As Yuki left, Nicole watched her walk away, her white curls bouncing with each step. She glanced down at the card with a small smile on her face. While the morning had started gray and haywire, she found that the clouds were leading to a sunnier day.


End file.
